> The mystery is this: Who has been buying the general-purpose Android tablets, and for what uses?

The few (German) Android fans I know go download console emulators or are trying to use their tablets to stream movies from shady websites using Flash. This makes it completely acceptable to have a terrible tablet app selection and works fine without ever paying $$$ on the Android market.

I know this is only anecdotal, but Android is clearly better for these activities. I can only watch some DVDs I ripped myself on my iPad because I got the VLC app during its short airtime on the App Store. :(